Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1887-01-19
Distribution Of Rewards.
THE CAPTURE OF THIS ROUND PLANET FOR
CHRIST rs NOT so MUCH OF JOB.
ALL THE EARTH WILL SURRENDER
TO CHRIST.

ALL IdE EAh II w ILL OUhhENOLh
TO CHRIST.
THE HEA VENLY DISTRIB UTTON
OF Spills WILL SURPRISE
MANY.
WHAT A DAY 1T WILL BE!
DIR. TALMAGE'S SERMON SUNDAY,
JAN. 9TH.
BROOKLYN, January 9.-The opening
hymn at the Brooklyn Tabernacle this
morning begins -
20, could speak the matchess worth,
O, could I sound the glories forth
Which in my Saviour shine !'
DIR. Talmage explained some of the proph-
ecies before giving ont the hymn, and
of Rewards" taking his text from Isaiah,
lii. 12: ''He shall divide the spoil with the
strong" DR.. Talmage spoke as follows
My family, who saw it with their own
eyes year before last tell me that in the
Coliseum at Rome, where prosecutors used
to let out the half-starved lions to eat up
Christians, there is now planted the figure
of a cross. And I rejoice to know that the
upright piece of wood nailed to transverse
piece has become the symbol. not more Of
suffering than of victory. 1t is of Christ
the Conqueror that my text speaks. AS a
kingly warrior, having subdued an empire,
might divide the palaces, and mansions,
and cities, and valleys, and mountains
among his officers, so Christ is going to di.
vide up all the earth, and all the heavens
among his people, and you and / will have
to take our share if we are streng in the
faith and strong in our Christian loyalty,
for my text declares it HE shall divide
the spoils with the strong"
The capture of this round planet for
Christ is not SO much of a job as you might
imagine, when the Church takes off its coat
and rolls up its sleeves for the work, as it
will. There are sixteen hundred millions
of people now in the world, and there are
four hundred and City million Christians.
Subtract the four hundred and fifty mil
lions who are Christians from the sixteen
hundred millions, and there are eleven
hundred and fifty millions left to be Chris
tianized. Now divide the eleven hundred
and fifty millions by the four hundred and
fifty millions already Christianized, and it
makes less than three people for each Chris
tian to bring to Christ. Surely, when the
Church gets wide awake no Christian will
be content to take to heaven less than
three. Why, l hope to take with me at
least ten thousand. l know evangelists
that have already gathered fifty thousand
each for the kingdom. There are at least
two hundred thousand men in Christendom
whose one business it is to save souls. So
that when / tell you all that we need to
average is three souls resped for God in a
lifetime. all idea of impossibility vaniShes
from this omnipotent crusade. I know of
Sabbath-school teacher who has spent her
lifetime in teaching the young, and she has
had five different classes during all the e
years. and she tells me they averaged about
seven in class, and they were all con-
verted, and five times seven are thirty five.
as near as l can calculate. She brought
her three and had ten spare My grand
mother brought her whole family into the
kingdom and her grandchildren, and hope
all her great-grandchildren for God re-
members prayer seventy five years old as
well as though it were a minute and she
took her twenty-five into the kingdom, and
had at least hundred to spare. Besides
that the telegraph and telephone will with
in few years put the whole earth into a
compass of len minutes. Consider this, and
also that Omnipotence and Omniscience
and Omnipresence preside over all the work
of betterment, and you will take this enter
prise OF the worlds redemption out of the
impossibilities into the probabilities, and
then out OF the probabilities into the GER
tainties. The building of the Union Pacific
railroad from ocean to ocean was greater
undertaking than the girdling of the earth
with the Gospel, for the one enterprise de-
pended upon the human arm, while the
other depends upon Almightiness.
Do really mean all the earth will sur
render to Christ? Yes. How about the
uninviting portions? Will Greenland be
evangellzed? The possibility is that after a
few more hundred brave lives are dashed
out among the icebergs, that great refrige-
rator, the Polar region, will be given up to
the walrus and the bear, and that the in
habitants will come down by invitation into
tolerable climates, or those climates may
soften, and, as it has been positively de-
monstrated that the Arctic region was once
blooming garden and fruitful field,
those regions may change climate and
again be blooming garden and a fruitful
field. 1t is proved beyond controversy by
German and American scientists, that the
Arctic regions were the first portions of
this world inhabitable the world hot be-
yond human endurance, those regions were
| of course the first to be cool enough for
human foot and human lung. 1t is posi-
lively proved that that Arctic region was a
tropical climate. Frof. Heer, of Zurich,
says the remains of flowers have been found
in the Arctic, showing it was like Mexico
for oil 70 80 hot h.
was the mother-region from which all the
flowers descended. Prof Wallace says the
remains of all styles of animal life are found
in the Arctic, including those animals that
can live only in warm climates. Now, that
Arctic region which has been demonstrated
by flora, and fauna, and geological argu-
ment to have been as full! of vegetation and
life as our Florida, may be turned back to
its original bloom and glory, or it will be
| shut up as museum of crystals for curios-
ty-seekers once in while TO visit. But
Arctic and Antarctic in some shape will
belong to the Redeemer's realm
What about other unproductive or repul-
sive regions? All the deserts will be- irri-
gated, the waters will be forced up to the
great American desert between here and
the Pacific by machinery now known or yet
to be invented, and as great Salt Lake City
has no rain and could not raise an apple or
bushel of wheat in hundred years with
out artificial help, but is now through such
means one great garden, SO all the unpro-
ductive parts of all the continents will be
turned into harvest fields and orchards. A
half dozen De Lesseps will furnish the
world with all the canals needed, and will
change the course of rivers and open new
lakes, and great Sahara Desert will be cut
up into farms with an astounding yield of
bushels to the acre. The marsh will be
drained of its waters and cured of its mala-
ria. saw the other day what was for
many years called the Black Swamp of
Ohio, its chief crop chills and fevers, but
now, by the tiles put into the ground to
carry off the surplus moisture, transformed
into the richest and healthiest of regions
The God who wastes nothing, / think,
means that this world, from pole to pole,
has to come to perfection of foliage and
fruitage. For that reason he keeps us run
ming through space, though SO many fires
are blazing down in its timbers, and SO
many mock terrors have threatened to dash
it to pieces. AS soon as the ea.t tn is COM